South Florida Crime

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) – After being charged with three counts of first-degree murder in September, Clem Beauchamp, 34, was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for an unrelated gun charge.

Beauchamp has been held behind bars since March after he pleaded guilty to possessing a homemade silencer in 2009. Police discovered the gun in a bag with a knit hat and a Halloween mask.

Prosecutors said Beauchamp’s girlfriend Felicia Brown, 25, worried she would take the fall for the gun and the silencer and agreed to cooperate against Beauchamp in the gun case and meet with a federal agent. She disappeared shortly after.

Brown’s body was found in a landfill last August while the the bodies of her children, 10-year-old Jermaine McNeil, and 6-year-old Ju’Tyra Allen, were found in March stuffed in luggage in a Palm Beach County canal.Prosecutors say the boy was killed by blunt force injuries to head, and the girl was killed by asphyxiation. The mother’s cause of the death was not disclosed.

After his arrest, Brown’s family said Beauchamp tired unsuccessfully to silence Brown and her children.

“He tried, but he didn’t realize how much she was loved. He messed up,” said Brown’s cousin Tanicsha Lowery.

Beauchamp has denied his involvement in the deaths and will appeal according to his attorney.